


Blood and Fire

by pocketTherapist



Category: Naruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:21:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8732821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketTherapist/pseuds/pocketTherapist
Summary: Itachi does not fear.





	

Itachi does not fear. It is not a luxury he allows himself, an emotion as mundane as fear. And besides, who is he to know of true fear, the way his clan (Shisui, his _parents)_ must have known it, facing down their deaths at his hands. He has looked death in the face many times, but he does not fear it—rather, it too is a luxury he is not yet allowed the release of.

Itachi does not fear, has not feared anything since he accepted Shisui’s eye and banished his own emotions deep within himself, so they could not stay his hand.

(His hand trembled, regardless, and his powerful new eyes had wept, but Itachi felt nothing. Perhaps, if he tells himself this often enough, it will make it true.)

So Itachi stretches himself in the great throne on the dais, crosses his feet at the ankle, and pretends his vision shows him more than unshaped patches of color, pretends his ribs aren’t cracked from coughing and that he can’t feel the ever-present sensation of his own lungs tearing themselves apart.

If he feared, it would be that his brother would fail, wouldn’t be strong and able to protect himself, because that would mean that everything would be in vain. But Sasuke is strong, and he hates Itachi with a passion that drives him ever-onward. Itachi regrets this, vaguely, because regardless of his actions he has always loved his brother more than anything, but Sasuke hates him and is strong, and Itachi can be content with that.

(His chest aches, but surely that is nothing more than the disease eating away at him. His eyes ache fiercely, and had his tear ducts still been intact he might have been surprised to find them watering.)

Itachi does not fear. He will fight his brother, put him through the most grueling battle of his life, because Itachi is not the strongest opponent Sasuke must needs face, but Itachi will be damned if he dies for anything less than a performance to be proud of.

He feels the sword piercing the heart of his clone and wants to laugh, but he cannot spare the breath to do more than breathe, and his stream of fire bears along flecks of blood as he demands more of his body than it can give him.

He wonders at the fear in Sasuke’s eyes at the threat Itachi poses and it makes him want to cry, almost, that a warrior as fierce and proud as his little brother has become would be so terrified by him, broken, dying, blind Itachi.

He summons Amaterasu and Susanoo, because he wants his brother to know what the Sharingan can truly achieve, despite the fact that he can feel his left lung collapse under the strain, filling with blood and stealing the last of his breath. He leaves his eyes open despite the fact that he can no longer see anything except a wavering sheet of red, and is caught wondering if it is blood or fire. Perhaps both—it has always been the way of the Uchiha to mix the two.

Itachi does not fear. He steps forward, his Susanoo crumbling and his body expiring, and he thinks that maybe this will finally be over. He intends to play his part of villain to the last, but he cannot stop the instinct that reaches, not for Sasuke’s eyes, but his forehead, that gasps a last apology with lungs that can no longer exchange oxygen.

Itachi watches the red obscuring his vision swirl and fade to black, and he does not fear.


End file.
